


waves and wonders

by sweetwatersong



Series: compass rose 'verse [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, First Meetings, Gen, Genderswap, Hurt/Comfort, Magic Revealed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 12:52:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16556099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetwatersong/pseuds/sweetwatersong
Summary: The ocean has untold surprises: a drifting young human, a woman who can see magic, the hidden resting place of a god's artifact. When magic and men mix, however, it's no shock that SHEL is going to get involved. [Merman!Clint]





	1. overboard

Although the sea often seemed empty, it was never silent. It had an endless cacophony of noise: Whales singing to far-off family, ships creaking as they rode low in the water, floater fish churning in their shimmering balls in a frantic bid to avoid predators. After a while you tuned it out until something caught your attention. For Clint that was usuaully the distant crash of a thrashing animal, the unmistakeable signal of something wounded and in distress. Even if he wanted to ignore it he was never able to, because the hunt was as much in his blood as the shark.

It was this sound of an injured creature that brought Clint's scouting plants to a halt when he caught wind of it somewhere southwest of the Gray Spires. It only took him a moment to realize that whatever creature it was, it was decent-sized. The only thing that came to mind would be a seal, but here... The true seals gave way to the Selkies in this region, and no Selkie would make that much noise. They knew, like every other creature in the ocean, that predators listened for such sounds.

He slowed from his rapid pace gradually, pausing in that amorphous zone where the light began to fade and the dark of the ocean reached up. If it was a Selkie, he'd better lend a fin. Something larger and hungrier than him was bound to hear them if they kept that flailing up.

A sense of unease rolled down his shoulders and scales at that thought, but Clint shook it off as he oriented himself with a glance towards the angled shafts of light illuminating the surface. Then he put his head down and put all the famed speed of his wild cousins to use.

-

The source of the racket turned out, to his great surprise, to be a human clinging to some sort of barrel. Even stranger was the length of rope that trailed in the current behind her, a ragged end swaying aimlessly. He paused long enough to stare at it before continuing to circle in the water below her, taking in the odd apparition. What he had heard had been her bare feet kicking at the small sailfish taking refuge in her shadow. Despite her best efforts to disturb them the floater fish were dodging every kick that swished their way, determined to stay in the shelter of her billowing dress. They knew that in her shadow they were marginally safer, a less tempting target for the predators of the ocean.

The woman providing their refuge, however, was another story.

Where in the seven oceans had she come from? No ships had passed by this quadrant in the morning and as far as Clint knew humans hadn’t decided to grow wings and fly - yet, he amended. It was always possible she was a Selkie in distress, remaining in human form. But the spark that would identify her as _other_ to his senses was blatantly absent. Even the water tasted only of salt and sweat and the tang of humanity. For all appearances, she was human. As for her actual appearance…

When the woman’s kicking stilled Clint chose a spot a tail-length away and surfaced slowly, switching to breathing fresh air as water cascaded over his closing gills.

“Holy shit!”

He opened his eyes to see the bedraggled human openly gaping at him. Her astonishment lasted until a rivulet of salt water splashed over the barrel and across her open jaw. She sputtered at that and licked cracked lips with a grimace.

“Ugh, okay, clearly I’ve lost it and gone mad or I drank too much damn seawater, because I’m hallucinating. Great.” She drew a ragged breath that sent knotted strands of dark hair sliding over her sunburned features. “I actually can’t tell which would be worse.”

Clint’s eyebrows rose. Before he could reply she stiffened, alarm flashing across her face. “There it is again! Get it off, get it off, get it off!”

“Woah, woah, easy!” He raised his hands defensively while she began to kick frantically, the folds of her dress dragging through the water. “It’s okay, they’re just sailfish. Nothing is trying to eat you, I promise. Just calm down, okay?”

“You try getting thrown off of a ship and drifting for a day, then tell me to calm down, okay?” She retorted. As quickly as it had come, though, her sudden burst of energy flagged into exhaustion and she slumped over the cask that apparently served as a makeshift buoy. Which, not good, but good.

“The more you splash like that, the more likely you are to attract predators.” Clint drifted closer, still holding his hands above the water. His warning was a good reminder to them both; his scales prickled as he imagined the creature most likely to sense her distress and pay a visit. Shark and Were he might be, but the Great Whites were a class unto themselves.

“Like that would make much of a difference at this point.” The human ignored the way her voice broke and tried to blow a tangled lock of hair out of her eyes. Upon her failure to do so she sighed. “I’m kinda surprised at how rational you seem, to be honest. I would’ve thought my dying hallucinations would be more, you know, panicky.”

“Hallucination?”

“You know, something that’s not real, but you see it anyway.” She squinted at him, never relaxing the tension that kept her curled around the cask. “Like you.”

“I mean, I think I’m pretty real.” He was close now enough to see the salt dried on her cheeks and around her eyes. How long had she been out here - and, once more for good measure, how under the blue ocean had she gotten here?

“Maybe that’s what hallucinations are supposed to say.” The human leaned her head against her wooden lifesaver and closed her eyes. “Well, it could be worse. You could be, I don’t know, a kraken. Or a shark.”

Clint resisted the urge to inform her that he was part shark by a fins-breadth. Even if he lacked tact in a lot of situations that seemed like a bad move in this case. Instead he finally lowered his hands and asked the only logical question.

“What are you doing out here?”

She snorted; an edge of tired hysteria threaded through the ragged sound. “Dying.”

Point. She certainly wasn’t wrong. “Okay, let me rephrase that. How did you get out here?”

“Well, when Jane refused to lead them to any of the magic she’d found, they held us hostage. Only - well, I ended up overboard. So here I am, floating in the middle of the fucking ocean, with no chance of ever getting back home. And I’ve thought a lot about just letting go, you know? It’s not like help is going to come anytime soon.” If it weren’t for the bone-deep weariness in her tone he might have wondered if she was crying. But no, no more salt was leaving her grime-streaked face to meld with the sea. Since she couldn’t afford to lose any more water that was probably a good thing.

“You might be surprised.” Clint was already running through shipping routes in his head. A stranded human girl, someone who could find magic, and a crew willing to kill to make this “Jane” cooperate? It might not seem incredibly reliable, given the human’s state, but it did sound right up SHEL’s alley. Which as the SHEL operative on site made it his problem. Every time humans tried to meddle with magic it ended poorly, not to mention that it always made more work for him. “Are they coming back for you?”

“Are you kidding? I’m only alive because Jane tossed this thing overboard too. I have no food, I can’t get to the fresh water in there, and it’s only - only a matter of time.” The crusted strands of her hair rustled as she turned her head, her eyes still closed. In a whisper she added, “And I’m scared to die.”

Well, fuck.

Sometimes Clint wondered if the universe at large was out to make his life more difficult, or if he was just unlucky. It was probably a combination of both.

“Stay here. I need to call for help.”

“Where am I supposed to go?” The woman’s mix of panic and irony was palpable. Out of instinct Clint reached out and put his hand on the pale fingers closest to him. When the human started and whipped bloodshot eyes up to stare at him, he met her gaze and held it.

“I’ll be back.”

He twisted away to sink beneath the waves, aiming for the deeper currents with swift flicks of his tail. If he was going to make this work out he’d need serious help.

However difficult fate liked to make his life, it seemed to be on his side this time. A passing humpback whale heard the chime of Clint’s wave-speaker and came in answer, examining him with one large eye as the slow undulations of his tail carried him through the currents. As much as some SHEL agents bitched about the wave-speakers they were, as far as Clint was concerned, invaluable. Nothing else would have allowed him to convey the pretty convoluted gist of what he needed. Fortunately the old whale, amused by the urgency of the younger breeds, agreed to oblige him as a favor to SHEL. Thank the tides; he didn’t want to owe any more behemoths personal favors than he had to.

As Clint swam back to the surface in a steady spiral, his body adjusting to the lesser pressure, he felt the whale’s haunting song begin to roll through his bones.

The current had carried the woman only a short distance from where he had first found her, and the trailing rope helped to serve as a marker of her passage. This time when he broke through the surface and blinked, squinting against the afternoon light, she attempted to free one hand cradling the cask to point at him. It jerked to an abrupt stop only a split-second after she tried, however, and the reason why was immediately apparent. Rope of the same type that drifted behind her also bound her wrists together.

“You.”

“Me,” Clint agreed, breaking his gaze away from staring at her hands to scan the horizon for any new threats.

“You’re real.”

“As far as I can tell, yeah.” Nothing. On this stretch of the ocean, where could the mystery ship have been originally heading? And was there any way to figure out where it could be going now?

“How can you be real?”

“Ever heard of mermaids?” The ponderous, lilting hum in his fins and ribcage stopped. That meant good news - or at least, he hoped it meant good news. They were both up on a beach without a tide if it didn’t.

“Who hasn’t?”

“Well, I’m the guy version of one.”

“That kinda makes sense. I mean, to have a population and everything. Or do you call them schools? Shoals?”

“Those are human words. It’d be like calling a group of humans a herd. But hey, close enough.” Turning his mind away from the whalesong he caught sight of the girl’s half-hearted amusement.

“Depending on the group, ‘herd’ might be the best word.” She wet the dried blood on her lips and adjusted her grasp on the cask. He could see now that she had positioned herself so her tied hands kept her body securely wrapped around the wood, likely saving her life more than once since her fall. “Wow. Mermaids are real. You know, I would have been just fine not dying to find that out.”

“You’re not going to die.” He paused and amended that statement. “At least, you’re not going to die if I can help it. My name’s Clint.”

“Darcy." Her cracked lips shifted into a small, crooked curve. "And I hate to break it to you, Clint, but I’ve had a long time to think about this, and I really don’t think I have a way out.”

His response would have to wait because the water had begun to ripple only a shell's throw away. Sure enough in another moment the humpback’s broad snout broke the water there, rolling to reveal a massive, intelligent eye that looked on with evident amusement as Darcy shrieked. In just as short a time that gaze was replaced first by gray skin, then a long white flipper that broke the surface in an unmistakable imitation of a human wave; another stretch of gray skin, speckled flukes, and finally unbroken water as the mammoth beast became only a shadow under the waves once more.

“That’s a good sign. Could’ve been a tail-slap; those sting like a jellyfish.” Clint grinned at the astonished human, clearly still trying to figure out where the whale had gone. “Have you ever seen one before?”

“Definitely not that close,” she replied in a faint voice.

“Yeah, pretty few have. Just hold on, Darcy. We’ll get you help soon.”

“I’m not the only one who needs help. Jane - Jane and Erik are still on that ship, if they haven’t been killed. If those sailors are making them follow the magic, who knows what could be happening to them?”

Clint focused on her, his grin fading. 

“When you say ‘they,’ who do you mean?”

Over the next hour he undid her bonds even as he untangled what details Darcy could recall, dehydrated and dazed as she was. She, Jane, and Erik had boarded a trans-Atlantic ship for passage to England, with Jane acting as the ship's navigator in exchange for their passage. Along the journey Jane had found confirmation of her theory that incredibly subtle auroras, apparently visible only to her, were centered around fixed or moving locations. She had theorized that these “phenomena” were caused by “points” of magic, and although she had kept this largely to herself, several crew members had overheard her discussions with Erik.

Demands by the captain that Jane use this ability to lead them to the nearest magic source had met with no agreement - until it reached the moment when the crew threatened her friends’ lives. During that confrontation Darcy had gone overboard, along with the cask that had saved her life. That had been almost a day ago by her reckoning.

“And then, somehow, I ended up meeting a mermaid - merman? - who keeps saying I’m going to be okay. Which is kind of hard to believe from my perspective. I mean, I would actually kill someone for a drink of water right now. With my bare hands. Kill someone. And it’s sitting in this fucking barrel inches away from reach.” She thumped the cask angrily with a knee. Because of its unwieldy nature neither of them had been able to reach the spigot and simultaneously tilt it to get water out. Clint winced in sympathy but only half-heard her next words, his eyes on the horizon.

“I never thought I would wish for a storm, but a squall, or even a shower, or, fuck it, a hurricane…”

“If we get you to that ship, Darcy, you can have all the fresh water you can stomach.”

“Ha, like that’s going to…” She tipped her head to look at him with one reddened eye. “Who’s ‘we’?”

From the east and coming closer rose the welcome sight of tall black fins, arching gracefully out of the sea.

-

Steve lifted his head out of the water a man-length away from Clint, jaw dropping as he nodded to the merman. He bowed his head in return, grinning to match the other Were’s expression.

“I’m glad the call reached you. I was kinda counting on you and _The Widower_ being close enough. Romanoff and Barnes filled in on the situation?”

The orca blew out a spout of agreement, mouth closing, before he gave a pointed gesture of his head in Darcy’s direction.

“Yeah, this is the human in distress. She fell off her ship yesterday and I found her earlier this afternoon.” At the pod-leader’s series of clicks Clint nodded. “Pretty much. But we’ve got another problem. She says they have a navigator on board who thinks she’s able to detect concentrated magic, and she’s being forced to lead the ship to the nearest source.”

The other Howling Commandos clustered around them blew out sharp spouts of breath that sent their dorsal fins rocking as they reacted to the news. Steve remained steadily watching Clint, his brown eyes considering.

“The way I see it, we have two issues. One, we need to get her out of here.” Clint gestured to Darcy, still staring at the orcas in weak but incredulous disbelief. “Two, we need to find that ship. And if we can get her to the ship, SHEL can snare two kraken in one net. Darcy remembers the last heading the ship was on as north, north-east. It’s not much but it’s something to go on.”

Steve nodded before he lowered himself back into the water and faced the other Commandos. The pod’s complex discussion began; although Clint couldn’t hear it himself, the faint hum of his wave-speaker against his side carried the sensation of layered voices. While they talked he glanced at the human who was the source of all this trouble. She was still bobbing open-mouthed next to him.

“More whales.”

“Yup.”

“And you’re talking to them.”

“Yup.”

“Do they… understand you?”

“Sometimes I need diagrams, but for the most part-” A head bumped his fins and he relented, chuckling. “Yeah, they do.”

“Wow.” A moment of silence fell as the whales clicked and chirped around them. Then, “Clint?”

“Yeah?”

“I know know what you said, but… am I really going to make it?”

The undercurrent of terror her body couldn’t afford to show still sang in her words. Alongside it was the same fear of the Abyss that every knowing creature had, or learned. Clint touched her shoulder gently, doing his best to avoid the patches of bright red skin.

“We’re going to do our best.”

Most human rescues retold in songs around the seven seas happened during shipwrecks, close to shore. The dolphins were particularly proud of their heroic ballads about those. Out in the open ocean, with a ship unknown miles away…

“You’ll be okay, Darcy.”

And if all else failed, they would sing her to the Deep.

-

Although the Weres worked quickly Darcy still slipped off between moments of awareness. For all their strengths and advantages, Clint mused as he kept an eye on her, humans were curiously fragile. Take a lack of appropriate water and add too much exposure to the sun, and just like that their bodies began to fail them. Still, the merman had a hunch to what the Were-orcas’ solution would be, and so left her dozing until the pod came to a consensus.

The shift happened in the space of a thought: one moment an orca’s back shone under the sun, then next a woman treaded water as the sea rushed to fill the space where her whale-form had been. She rode out the wave before making her way over to Clint with swift, firm strokes.

“Long time no see, merman,” the black-haired healer greeted him with a grin. He nodded.

“Morita. How’s the ocean?”

“Wet.” She wrapped the fingers of one hand around the cask’s rim, her impish expression turning intent as she began to study the sleeping human. “On the sea for a day; no kind thing, to one of their kind.”

“Yeah. You should have heard her cuss me out when she realized I was real.” Clint nudged Darcy’s elbow, prompting the human to stir.

“Whazzat?” She lifted her head weakly, tongue trying to wet her lips. He knew the moment she caught sight of the black-suited Were through one bleary eye because she paused and gave Jamie the same suspicious examination he himself had received.

“She’s real,” he reassured her. Darcy cracked her other eye open to peer at him, then Jamie.

“Huh. Well-” Her voice caught in the throat and she coughed, a dry, racking sound. “If you're going to keep inviting people to the party, should’ve brought drinks.” The contrast in her tone just from the Were-orcas’ arrival to now was startling, though not unexpected.

“Lucky for you, you brought your own.” Jamie nodded at Clint. He tucked one hand under Darcy’s elbow and the other under her wrists as Jamie did the same. “Don’t panic, we’re going to give you a better vantage point.”

“Wha-”

Even as she began to ask they maneuvered her off the cask that had kept her alive and towards Jamie. In a moment another smooth black back slid up behind the Were; together, she and Clint got Darcy’s looped arms over the dorsal fin that had been presented for just such a purpose. “I’m Jamie. This is Falsworth. He’ll keep you floating while we work on that water.”

Darcy lost the bewildered tension that the transfer had created. “Water?”

“Soon.” Jamie turned back to the cask. Between them and with a little nudge from Jacqueline they managed to lever it up enough that the spigot was accessible, the fresh water inside audibly sloshing around. Clint poured enough to fill Jamie’s cupped hands, leaving the healer to carry the precious mouthful to the human.

“All right, Darcy, can you open your mouth for me? I’m going to give you a bit of river water.” When Darcy stiffened Jamie lifted her hands and the water away. “Not too fast, you’ll make yourself sick.”

“Don’t care, dying,” she retorted with a scratchy voice, but subsided. Clint wasn’t sure what that water tasted like after having been stored in a wooden barrel for who knew how long, or ferried in a Were’s salt-washed hands, but from Darcy’s expression as the trickle made it into her mouth it must have tasted like heaven. They repeated the cumbersome operation twice more before Jamie nodded.

“All right. Let that sit for a while before we try some more.” Darcy moaned in protest but made no move for the cask, satisfied to savor what she had already gotten. Jamie’s lips twitched. “I think you’ll live.”

“Optimist,” the human replied, slumping over her cask. She might have been right. Clint shot Jamie a raised eyebrow, aware of the space where two whales had been minutes ago.

In response to his unspoken question the Were grinned. “Have to find the ship first, merman. We figured the easiest way would be to tow her. Too hard for all of us if we had to strap her to a dorsal fin and swim, and it’s not like she can hang on.”

Darcy blew a raspberry and lifted one hand to demonstrate how well she had held onto the cask all this time.

“There’s a little difference between a bobbing barrel and an orca swimming at top speed,” the Were informed her. She nodded a sleek black pouch on her hip that she was opening up. “Some rope will have the best chance of keeping her above water.”

“Water?” Darcy asked plaintively.

“Soon.” Jamie fished a length of the seaweed-green rope out.

“Please.”

Jamie looked at Clint with concern at the small whisper evident in her expression. He shrugged minutely, helpless to do more than let the healer help her.

“Soon,” the Were repeated and set to work gathering up her rope.

-

With four Were-orcas for company Clint figured it safe enough to snag one of the persistent sailfish still stubbornly hiding under their shadows. Most humans preferred cooked fish over the raw kind; Clint, like many seafolk, saw frying or roasting as a travesty and abhorred it on general principle. However she might have felt normally Darcy certainly enjoyed the pale flesh with an appetite even the Were-orcas could appreciate. In short order she settled back into a light doze and, as exhausted as she was, never stirred while they worked.

By the time everything had been arranged to Jamie’s satisfaction the sun had begun its slow western descent. Clint tugged on a strap of the unbraided seaweed to test its strength, pleased with the rigged set-up.

“Looks good.”

“The only question is, will it hold?” The pod’s healer checked another knot and nodded, glancing at him. “Now we just need-” She stilled, a smirk spreading across her lips as she listened to the song that hummed through Clint’s wave-speaker. “Sing of the kraken. Gabe and Dugan found a ship matching the human’s description. No SHEL seal, which isn’t surprising. Still on the heading Darcy suspected, too.”

“Your pod ready?”

Steve’s well-timed exhalation four tail-lengths out was answer enough.

“All right.” Jamie gently shook Darcy’s shoulder, her fingertips light on the skin that had blistered despite their best efforts to shade it. The girl stirred and mumbled unintelligibly. “Time to get going.”

After a few more moments, when Darcy had collected her scattered thoughts, she wiped at her eyes with the back of one hand.

“If you’re expecting me to kick my way to shore, have I got bad news for you,” she told them.

“Curses, we’ve been foiled.” Jamie pulled up the rough handles they had fashioned around the cask. “Hands here, that rope,” referring to the one Clint held up, “around your waist, and you should be pretty secure.

Darcy eyed it with the mix of curiosity and skepticism Clint was beginning to recognize.

“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I.”

“You might regret not doing this more,” the Were informed her, mouth twitching as she fought her smile.

“Probably.” Darcy slipped her hands into the handles, shifting to settle the rope slung around her waist. She stopped, looking at Jamie. “Where exactly did you come from, anyway?”

She wiggled her fingers. “You’d recognize me with fins instead.” Turning away from Darcy’s slowly dawning realization she met Clint’s gaze. “Going to keep up, merman?”

“Race me, Morita, and you’ll only regret it.”

Her dark eyes glinting with amusement, Jamie pushed herself away from the cask and kicked off towards the orcas waiting ahead of them.

“What exactly is happening here?” Darcy asked, following the Were’s swift progress.

“Hold on. You’re in for the ride of your life.” Clint grinned as Jamie arrowed out of the sea in a perfect diving arc. Mid-air her human form shifted, transforming into the gilded curves of an orca spectacularly outlined against the afternoon sun. Say what you might about the Commandos but their flair for the dramatic was well deserved. It had its intended effect, too; Darcy stared with wide eyes as the Were slipped below the surface to join Jacqueline, leaving Steve and Falsworth to draw in deep breaths and roll forward. The seaweed lines strung from the pair to the cask rose as they began to take up slack, heading into the golden edges of the ocean.

“Did she just-”

“Yup.”

“Is she-”

“Uh huh.”

The lines went taut and started to drag the cask, and its human cargo, forward.

“Holy shiiiiii-”

Clint slipped under the surface and followed the pod, laughter bubbling out through his gills.


	2. in the thunder

The clouds ahead were shaped like towering, massive anvils, made by the gods to make or break men upon. Whose forge they belonged in, what hammer would strike upon them, Jane couldn’t say. But what she hoped to shatter across them was clear in her mind. For Darcy's sake - for Erik's and her own - she would be this ship’s doom, and that of all those who sailed upon it.

Behind her the sailors who still held Erik hostage against Jane's intentions shifted. “Storm’s brewing,” Larkin told Captain Keluid roughly. It was clear that the first mate found blindly following Jane’s directions upsetting, but Keluid gave him little choice in the matter; gave all of them little choice. 

“Hn." The captain stepped up to the bow beside her, eyeing the horizon. To Jane's eyes a shape was emerging from the swirling golden auroras that hung below the clouds, circling like a storm themselves. From the low murmurs of the men she guessed that they were seeing it for the first time too. It was a craggy outline, a suggestion of an island they should have seen longer before they drew so near to it. More magic, then; more misdirection. Either would have worked but for her secret. If the artifact was this powerful, this protected, then surely it was strong enough to do as she wanted.

"Good, good." Keluid sounded far too pleased with himself. "What did you say you were tracking?”

“I didn’t." Jane gestured to the island, now more solid and real. "But what you want is there.” She could see now that auroras were centered on that point, swathing a good half-mile of the sea around it in flickering pinks and blues, and they were brighter than any she had seen before. If she had any fear left to feel the sight of that shimmering mist would have made her cringe.

There was no room for terror in her now, though, no remaining space where the threat and promised power could strike at her heart. She was full of grief and rage and the bitter taste of knowing the destruction of the _Puente Antiguo_ would be all the punishment she could promise Darcy, could do to save herself and Erik. For most of her life Jane had imagined her secret would go with her to the grave. It was a hollow victory, knowing she was right in every way she had never dreamed of.

The sea spray on her face felt like the tears she had long since run out of. Jane closed her eyes and let the wind play across her face, clean and crisp and potent with the crackling of a storm.

-

The jagged and uneven cliffs of the island surprisingly sheltered a beach that the _Puente Antiguo_ could anchor near. Keluid was on the boat that went ashore, of course, Jane’s arm held in his vise-like grip. Nikolai accompanied him, and Gerry and Pim; Larkin remained on the ship with Erik at his side, a pistol loaded and held in silent warning.

They rowed to the black sands, pulling the skiff high above the cold water’s reach, and went to seek the treasure she had promised them.

Every step Jane took on the rough-hewn stairs passed through gilded mists that remain undisturbed by her passage. Her instincts clamored for her to stop and experiment, to see if she could identify why the insubstantial aurora did not follow the rules of air and touch. It would take more than death to rob her of that desire, she thought with gallows humor, and wanted to tell Darcy’s ghost again that she was sorry. But she kept going, Keluid’s heavy steps at her rear, and caught her breath in gasps that had much in common with sobs.

They rose higher, higher, higher, until at last Jane climbed through the edge of the gold aurora and saw clear air ahead.

Clear air and, set near the top of the crumbling peak, a hammer.

“That’s it?”

She stepped to one side as Keluid and his crew climbed up into a span of flattened rock that stretched before the hammer like an audience hall. It put her close to the edge, where a single wrong motion would send her down to the sea. The reminder of Darcy’s fate was all too clear in her mind’s eye as she skirted the rim.

_Darcy._

Suddenly, every intention she had of letting Keluid incur the artifact’s wrath vanished. Her boots crunched on loose rock as she surged forward; one stride, then another, as the men realized what she has in mind and began to react. But they were slow, too slow. Jane reached for the hammer with desperation and fury in her heart and, before they could stop her, her fingers folded around its leather-wrapped grip.

Lightning crashed out of the sky, violent, blinding, striking the peak mere feet from Jane’s out-stretched hand. When the thunder died and her gaze cleared, Jane's first thought was that the auroras were gone. Her second was that they were no longer alone.

She stared up, and up, and up at the blond-haired man who was unfolding from a crouch, a red cloak whipping about his shoulders. From where he towered above her he stared at them all with rage and undisguised disgust, lips curled in wrath. She did not have to search long to see their deaths reflected in his glittering gaze.

“Who dares to steal the power of Thor?” The massive figure snarled.

Jane should have been terrified, should have been breathless, should have been shaking where she knelt. She was not.

Instead, rising slowly to her feet, she poured her own grief and fury into her white-knuckled grip as she lifted the hammer in one hand.

The change was instantaneous. The stranger’s eyes cut to meet hers, his head bending as if he could her all that she was thinking; as if he could read in her heart the events that had unfolded since her foolishness brought those she loved to their knees. What air had been still and silent on the island peak gathered itself and howled, cutting across Jane’s face and whipping the stranger's cloak into a frenzy. Every sound was lost in that moment of pure and exhilarating rage - even the sound of Keluid approaching. She only knew he was there when the tip of a dagger pressed into her side.

Jane drew in a shallow breath as Keluid’s hand curled around her throat, holding her in place as he shifted closer to her. She could smell the sea on him, the harsh lye soap he used and the reek embedded in his clothes that no amount of washing would get rid of. How pleasant he had acted, all those weeks ago on the docks of Virginia; she didn’t wonder at her own naivety and eagerness anymore.

“Now, Miss Foster, give me the hammer,” he said evenly in her ear. Jane’s eyes flicked up towards the stranger’s strong features. The ire that had been there was suppressed now; the entirety of his attention lay on the man standing behind her. She wondered for a moment if he would kill Keluid, and if he would go through her to do so. Caught between two deaths, Jane pulled in another breath and found she wanted neither of them.

It was real. Her theories, her ability, her dreams - they were real. What was more surprising was that they had turned out to be nightmares.

“You’ll kill me.”

Keluid huffed in her ear, the breath warm against her cheek. “That may be. But if you can bring us to treasures such as these, you may be worth the trouble of keeping you alive.”

“My power is not yours to take, mortal,” the god-like figure still watching them warned in a rumbling voice.

“Now, see - Thor, was it? - I know the old stories. It’s why I believed this woman in the first place. You’re bound to your things, and your power is mine for the taking.” Jane heard the soft sound of weapons being drawn, boots scuffing on gravel. The other three, following Keluid’s lead? “Hand me the hammer, Miss Foster.”

Everything in Jane wanted to yell, to scream, to fight this tooth and nail because it was wrong in more ways than she could name. The fire inside of her that had been banked since Darcy’s death was now a roar, brought back to life with the cold scent of lightning and the sea in the air. But the steel against her side was sharp and unrelenting, and the fingers on her neck had already begun to leave bruises.

It was because she was looking that she saw the stranger’s hand flex, because she was touching the hammer that she felt the inaudible hum. She caught his eye. Thor - if that was who he was - inclined his head the barest fraction.

Jane took a breath, feeling the dagger press into her skin, and let go of the hammer.

The world erupted into rain and lightning and pain.

She hit the sloping rocks and barely manage to cushion her fall before her momentum carried her down, further along the sheer slope. Her desperate fingers hooked onto a depression. Though her palms burned, she dragged herself to a halt facing towards the flattened stretch of stone.

Keluid was stumbling, flying through the air as Thor brought the hammer back around; Nikolai pulled the trigger on his pistol only to have the hammer slam into his shoulder. He collapsed, and Pim followed after when Thor pivoted and knocked him off of the small plateau. Gerry wielded his sword like the expert swordsman he claimed to be, but his blade was slicing uselessly against gleaming armor. It was only the work of another moment for Thor to bat the sword aside and take advantage of the opening.

As quickly as that the four men were down and dead, or near as, and Jane couldn’t catch her breath in the downpour that was making her hold on the rocks a tenuous one.

The stranger didn’t look human as he stood regal and triumphant in the screaming wind. He probably wasn’t. What love would a creature of magic have for a mortal, especially one who tried to take his power?

Thor surveyed the wreckage and swept his bright gaze across the rocks to find her. Jane stared back at him, struggling to keep her grip as the chill from the torrential rain slowly began to set in.

“Please,” she managed, trying to be heard above the thunder and wind. But it wasn’t for her own life that she was going to beg. “My friend Erik is down there. He’s blameless.” For all of it; for her ability, for her indiscretion, for the lie that had left Darcy to die on the ocean and everything after that.

Thor stared at her, face inscrutable. She couldn’t tell if he understood or if the destruction that raged in his heart would destroy the _Puente Antiguo_ without sparing her mentor. And where could Erik go, if this god were to spare him? Still-

She tightened her fingers on the biting edge of the stone.

“Don’t hurt him. Please.”

Thor moved. His hand, when he wrapped it around her wrist and pulled her gently to safety, was warm and felt almost human.

“Fear not; I mean neither you nor him any harm. It seems that enough has been done to you already.”

It appeared effortless for him to set her on her feet again, examining her gashed hands with a critical eye. The fading rain was still falling over bodies and stone slopes alike, but it didn’t touch her while she stood in front of him.

“You led these men here.”

“Yes.” What would the point of lying be, when he knew the truth?

“You thought to steal from me.”

“No. I wanted to destroy them. They killed-” Her throat closed.

“Your maid.”

 _Darcy,_ Jane's mind cried in anguish, and the ache proved so great that for a moment she imagined she could hear her friend’s voice.

Then Thor was turning away from her, down to where the _Puento Antiguo_ was anchored in the storm, and a gust of dying wind brought a hoarse shout to their ears.

“Jane!”

“Darcy?” Startled, Jane searched for the source of the call. “It - it can’t be.”

But there was the beach, and there was the skiff, and there was a bedraggled figure collapsed on the sand with unfamiliar figures beside her. All of it vanished as tears clouded Jane’s vision.

Impossible - but so was the man standing next to her.

Someone mounted the slick stairs. As soon as he spotted them he dropped into a formal bow.

“My lord,” the stranger said, head bowed as the rain pattered on a black suit that fit him like another skin. Thor spun his hammer in one hand and nodded curtly.

“Were.”

The newly arrived man lifted his head, his gaze calm and steady.

“I am Steve Rogers, of the Howling Commandos. We are allied with SHEL, and would intercede with you on the lady’s behalf.”

“A pod of Were-orcas, a merman, and a ship of thieving humans. It would seem my sanctuary is neither hidden nor sacred any longer.”

Jane pivoted back to him, ready to plead their case, but her words died on her lips. Although Thor’s gaze was cool his mouth twitched with something resembling humor.

“It’s my fault,” she repeated, still ready to accept the consequences of her decisions. “I brought them here. Even - indirectly,” she added, glancing uncertainly at Steve.

“Aye,” Thor agreed. When he met her gaze, though, she was reminded of that moment when she lifted the hammer, that the sense of understanding. “Then let me deal with all those interloping on my island, so that you may be gone once more.”

-

It was only after Jane finally sank down to sit on the beach, Darcy's arms still wrapped around her, that she realized what the sight might provoke on the _Puente Antiguo_. Her head whipped around to stare out towards the ship.

“The Commandos are retaking the ship,” Thor informed her, nodding towards the sleek black shapes she could barely make out on the deck in the setting sun. Rogers must have been among them, for he wasn't anywhere in her sight.

“There are still fifteen men on board!”

“Ten men or a hundred, doesn’t much matter where Were-orcas are concerned,” the man reclining in the surf said with a grin. Jane frowned and did a double-take when she realized what - or who - he was.

“You’re the merman?”

“Guilty as charged.”

“He’s the one who found me,” Darcy told her, leaning against Jane’s side as if she needed every help to remain sitting upright. Given how long she must have been in the water, that very well could have been the truth. Jane hugged her more tightly.

“Thank you.” She put every ounce of sincerity into her voice. To have Darcy lost, to have her come back…

“I’d say it’s my job, but I’m part shark, not part dolphin. The seeing magical auroras thing, on the other hand, that's right up my alley. So it all works out.” The merman shrugged. “Speaking of which, I know a few people who are going to want a word with you pretty soon.”

“SHEL will have a great interest in one who can see such things,” Thor concurred. Jane craned her head up to look at him. “As will my father and our kind.”

“What, the good-looking kind?” Darcy asked in a sleepy echo of her usual humor. Unexpectedly Thor smiled at her.

“Something of that sort.”

The merman, however, appeared uneasy.

“How likely is that Odin will take things into his own hands?”

“Kill Jane, you mean?” The frank manner with which Thor spoke of her death was enough to send shivers down Jane’s back. She hadn’t realized - “Once I explain to him that she is under my protection, he will be reluctant to make any such moves. The same goes for the others who abide by our code. As for the rest, they know to fear me, if not our laws.” His hand shifted to the hammer by his side.

It took Jane a minute to process everything he had said. The merman, on the other hand, raised his eyebrows but nodded.

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll pass that along to the people and seafolk on my end; it should help to smooth things over. Especially since you’re the first one she led anyone to that we know of.”

“I’ve never done this before,” Jane protested out of reflex. “In fact, I never planned to, I just…”

Darcy’s weight, dozing as she was with her head on Jane’s shoulder, was a comfort against the past twenty-four hours. Still, the chill of her absence lingered.

“I believe you.” Thor rested a hand on Jane’s other shoulder. “And yet, we all will have much to speak of.”

The merman groaned.

“What do you want to bet they’ll be holding a conference for days about this? Seriously, everything you humans do just makes more work for me.”

Still for all his grousing he reassured her that the Howling Commandos would crew the ship and get them safely to England. Then he bid them an easy farewell and slipped back into the ocean, destination unknown.

“What exactly did you mean by “under your protection”?” Jane asked when the last glimpse of the merman’s fins had passed.

“Simply what it implies: that any who would harm you will face me, should they attempt to do so.”

“Why?” Jane couldn’t twist around to fully face the storm god without disturbing Darcy, but when she tried to tip her head up he moved instead so she could face him, sinking onto his heels so that they were on eye level. “I brought these men here planning to let you - or whatever was here - kill them for what they did to Darcy. I tried to take your power, your hammer.”

He didn’t appear as alien and imposing here on the beach as he had in the heart of the storm, or as predatory and ruthless as when he first appeared on the spire of broken rock. She wondered if how she was seeing him had changed, or if he was acting more human for her benefit. It could even have been that all these were sides of him, part of who he was. She would probably never know the answer.

“There is a great deal of difference,” Thor said at last, “in the smallest of acts. Had you retained your claim on the hammer, you would have been in command of powers far beyond human comprehension and reach. You would, in fact, have been able to command my own self. But when your life hung in the balance, Jane, you choose to relinquish what you suspected could save you. I would have pardoned you for that alone.”

His gaze moved to Darcy, still dreaming against Jane’s side. “Your love for those dear to you, and your desire for justice, only make your acts more honorable.” He smiled at her then, kind and whole-hearted, delighted. “It is real, Jane; what you have sought, what you have quested for. There is a world of it beyond this island, and I would see you discover it, piece by piece, even those mysteries unknown to me.”

“Thank you?” Jane said after a moment, uncertain but willing to believe, willing to trust, and Thor laughed.

“Whazzat?” Darcy mumbled against her shirt.

“I suspect that it will be my place to thank you some day.” Then he rose, regal and real, and bent to press his lips against her hair. The pleasant shock that ran through her at the contact surprised her. “Now all will know whose protection you are under; you and your friends.” There was a flicker of the ocean in his gaze, a hint of the storm, when Thor straightened. “I will see you again, Jane. May you find what you are searching for.”

He rose, nodding to the Were-orca emerging in human form from the sea, and began to climb the stairs that wind back to the peak.

“Wow,” Darcy commented blearily. “Where can I get one like that?”

“Darcy!” Jane hissed, but there wasn't any bite to it.

“Ready to go, ladies?” The dark-skinned Were asked when he reached them, rolling his shoulders under the black skinsuit they all appeared to wear.

“I think so,” Jane replied. As Gabriel, as he introduced himself, began to row them in the skiff towards the _Puente Antiguo_ , she watched the spire reaching into the clouds and wondered if Thor was looking back at them.

The ship was setting sail in the light of the setting sun when a crack of lightning descended upon the island. The humans and Weres on board all turned towards the jagged cliffs - but Jane was the only one who saw the golden mist begin to spill out from the rocky island, swirling slowly into a storm all of its own.


End file.
